Olbermann Condemns “Teabaggers” To Hell Over Ugly Healthcare Fracas

Sometimes, Worst Person status isn’t enough. In last night’s Countdown, Keith Olbermann not only named Chicago Tea Patriots organizer Catherina Wojtowicz his Worst Person, but condemned her and her followers to hell for mocking a pro-health reform husband and wife who had lost their daughter-in-law and unborn grandchild to untreated double pneumonia.

When Dan and Midge Hough spoke in favor of health reform at a town hall meeting in Illinois earlier this month using their deep personal loss as a reference point, they were jeered by Chicago Tea Patriots in attendance. Wojtowicz later accused the couple of being Obama “operatives.”

A reporter for the Southtown Star verified that the Houghs’ story was true, and called the incident “a low mark in a very dark week:”

Catherina Wojtowicz, of Chicago’s Mount Greenwood community, an organizer for a Tea Party splinter group, Chicago Tea Party Patriots, falsely claimed that the Houghs fabricated their story. In an e-mail, she called them operatives of President Barack Obama who “go from event to event and (cry) the same story.”

When the Houghs spoke at the Lipinski event, some Tea Partiers ridiculed them. They moaned and rolled their eyes and interrupted. Midge Hough began to cry.

The audience, Wojtowicz later explained, was exasperated by stories of isolated tragedies that cloud debate over the health care bill itself.

“What we are talking about is the bill,” she said. “We’ve all had family members pass away, but would this health care bill really have prevented (Jenny’s) death? We do question it.”

It certainly was a low mark in a very dark week. What could be more illustrative of our state’s political marshland than openly mocking a grieving family?

Olbermann didn’t go for the same level of nuance: on his MSNBC.com page, referred to the Chicago Tea Patriots in question as “heartless teabaggers.” Still, he had an eloquent moment at the end of the segment:

After a local newspaper reporter verified the Houghs’ account, Ms. Wojtowicz defended herself by saying the protesters were frustrated by all these ‘isolated tragedies’ that get in the way of the discussion of the bill.

Ma’am, that’s what healthcare is: it’s a series of isolated tragedies. Isolated until they happen to you…

Moment of introspection accomplished, it was back to hyperbolic body blows: Olbermann went (non-denominationally) Biblical on Wojtowicz and the other Chicago Tea Partiers. “If any of the world’s major religions are right, ma’am, you, and for what you and the other people did to the Houghs, you’re going to hell.”

Here’s the video of the original town hall meeting (h/t Raw Story):